Risk Assessments in Events and Why you Should Conduct One

One section of the event planning process that not enough people engage in, is a risk assessment.  Risk assessments are a bit like insurance, you don’t need one, until you need one.  And I highly recommend everyone conduct a risk assessment as part of their planning process, and I show you how to conduct one of these in your planning process in the workshop.

Because it can be a bit difficult to find simple information on this topic, I’ve put together a few tips on how to easily conduct a risk assessment and why you should.

If you’re looking for an expert

Julia Rutherford Silvers is an event expert that has written an excellent book called “Risk Management for Meetings and Events”, which I highly recommend.  However, if you don’t want to buy a book or go through a learning process to understand risk assessments, please don’t let that stop you from using common sense.

You can just get it done.

It’s not as complicated as it sounds and essentially a risk assessment requires you to “walk through” your event either the planning documentation, a physical site visit or imagining each step, and looking for areas where things might go wrong. 

First of all, here’s some areas to look for potential risks include;

• human – type and size of crowd expected, level of crowd participation
• technological – mechanical, utilities such as gas and electricity
• natural – the physical location and site area conditions
• environmental – weather, Environment Protection Authority controlled, ground impact etc

And similarly, simply start a list with “what if…”  You really are just bouncing around scenarios and coming up with potential risks.  Once you have your list, evaluate the consequences or impact if what you have considered happening, actually happens.  Next think about if or how you might avoid the risk and implement those strategies.  You won’t be able to eliminate all risks but by simply doing this exercise and keeping a “risk register” (which is just a list of potential risks that pop into your mind throughout the planning process) you are looking after the health and well-being of yourself, your staff and your guests.

Now, don’t forget to put “what if there’s a pandemic” on your risk register….

Where to next?

To consider these skills and more you might like to check out our next event planning workshop.  Check out the workshops page for more information on when and where the next one is.